Holidays Past

I wanted to post a few holiday photos but couldn't find the time. This year I really wanted to have a relaxing holiday and not be in a big rush.

So if things didn't get done that is just how it goes. Spending time with my family is my main goal. (That's why I had so much time to bake. Ha ha!) My Christmas mantel was mostly silver and white. I was dreaming of a white Christmas.

This little guy could make anyone happy!

Theses are some ornaments that I bought when we liven in Spain. They are only little trinket and I added a ribbon. I always buy three, one for each child. I'm glad I got a few snaps before it's packed away again.

Simple Smoothie

The year is drawing to a close.

I hope you all had a wonder Christmas. Since we have had so much rich foods for the holidays and so many fancy treats, how about a simple fruit smoothie.

This is one of our favorites. First you add some orange juice. Throw in a banana and a hand full of strawberries (or blue berries or both).

Next a small 8oz container of yogurt, and you have your self a yummy smoothie! You can add any flavor yogurt you have on hand.

If it gets too thick, and it will, you'll have to stop the blender and poke at it a few times.

How easy is that, and no sugar!

Now doesn't that look fantastic! It's so thick you have to spoon it out. Adding a couple of ice cubes helps it to get real thick.

If you want to get real adventurous, try a tablespoon of peanut butter. We have even put in a few leaves of fresh spinach. Crazy sounding but you really can't taste any difference.

Enjoy a healthy refreshment!

You deserve it.

Pecan Crescents

I guess you might say I'm in a cookie mood. Kinda strange for me because I have never cared for baking cookies in the past. I always felt that putting cookies in and out of the oven was such a drag. I just didn't have the patience for it. I would have preferred to put something in the oven one time and be done with it.

Well I not sure what happened but here I am making cookies galore.

This is a recipe I found over at Lisa is cooking

Another great food blog and again she takes way better photos than I. I'm taking great liberties to use her photo. I'm afraid you all would die laughing when you saw goofy my crescents looked.

I have seen the cookies around for years and never thought about making them. I think what I like about this cookie is that it isn't overly sweet.

And it has pecans.

And powdered sugar....

If any one has a yummy cookie recipe idea please sent it my way.

I want to leave you with the most beautiful version of

Silent Night.

A blog friend posted this and I had to pass it along.

Silent night has been recorded by over 300 artist, in over 44 languages.

This version is beautiful!

Thank you, Spilled On The Kitchen Table for sharing this!

Vanilla Nutmeg Cookies With Eggnog Glaze

Well here it is,winter solstice. What to do, what to do. Hum.

Bake more cookies!

I found another recipe that was calling out to me. Since I'm a big fan of eggnog I felt I must give this one a try. With a total of 6 ingredients how could I go wrong!

Yummy soft cookies!

I found this recipe from a blog called, Pressed down, not shaken.

Recipe:

1 Vanilla cake mix

1 tsp nutmeg

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

Mix ingredients together and drop a tsp size dough onto coolie sheet. This batter is very dry. Also it make a small batch. Maybe 24 coolies. Bake 350 degrees for 10 of 11 min. Don't let this get over brown only very light brown.

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2-3 Tablespoons of eggnog ( you can use eggnog coffee creamer)

Mix and drizzle over cookies. Add a dash of nutmeg on the tops.

Enjoy!

Hope you like this one. It's really good!

Thanks for stopping by.

Holiday bulletin boards for school

I took theses photos the last week of school. Some of our teachers have some really great ideas. Usually when I'm looking for ideas I go to Pinterest.

Snowflakes are always a favorite with me.

This comes from a very creative forth grade teacher.

This polar bear and penguin were done free hand by a second grade teacher. He is such a great artist and musician.

How cute is this. Very simple. Ms Amanda is another one our super second grade teachers.

Another super second grade teacher came up with this one. Mrs. Kelly is always coming up with creative ideas in her class room.

I'm having a nice holiday vacation so far. Hope you are too. My house is finally clean. Ha ha!

It is a little lonely with both my older boys away. But that is true anytime they are not here. However my daughter is still is at home. I probably have only one year with her left. So hard to let kids grow up and be on their own. So funny, when they are little you want them to grow up but when they are grown up you want them little again. Boo hoo. What is up with me?

Thanks for stopping by!

Carmen's favorite cookie

Now That I'm off from school and Christmas vacation has begun it's time to bake more cookies. Yea! A few years ago my sister came for a visit. You have to know my sister is a fantastic cook. So naturally she made us some of her best cookies.

Neiman Marcus cookies.

Well, now these yummy cookies are my daughters' favorite cookie. All the kids are asking for Aunt Kathy's cookies.

Now when you make these cookies at first they seen very dry. You have to have real muscle to stir these babies up! Carmen did the honors. She is trying to get big muscles. Ha ha! I like my cookies to all look the same and if you use a scoop it really helps out. I used a medium scoop from Pampered Chef. Oh, yes and on a stone.

I bagged up several up for my friends and neighbors. The recipe make a huge batch which is a good thing. Recipe:

2 cups butter

2 cups sugar

2 cups brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla 4 large eggs

4 cups flour

5 cups blended oatmeal ( blended in a processor )

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups chopped nuts ( optional ) my kids don't care for nuts

16 oz chocolate chips

16 oz butterscotch chips

Cream butters and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and mix. Mix with dry ingredients a bit at a time. ( this is very dry ) Add chips and nut. Bake cookies at 375 degrees for 10 min. I like my cookies soft so don't let them get to brown on the tops.

I hove you all are having fun this holiday season.

Happy baking!

Linked to: The Shady Porch

Replacing a lamp socket This is my table lamp in my family room. It has been flickering a bit lately. I've mostly tried to to ignore it but at night is hard to do that. So I thought I can fix this or complain about it. It's not like some fairy is going to come in my house and fix everything. Ok here goes. Thank goodness for Google!

First I took the top apart. So far no problem. I'm all about taking things apart. I bought a new socket replacement at Lowe's.

I needed to cut the wires a bit so that they were split into a "Y". This was just enough so that there was enough to twist in place.

Then I re-twisted the wires around to screws for the connection. I know I left out a lot of steps and photos but the point I'm trying to make is that I did it myself!

Actually all the information was on the internet. Anyone can do this.

Christmas ornaments for the classroom

I thought I would share with you all some crafts I have been working with the kids in class. I'm sure most of these are ones that you all have seen before, but I need a reminder sometimes. I know it may seen redundant seeing the same things over and over again. But through a kids eyes they still think it's fun to make crafts of any type.

There is only one thing that really scares me !

Glitter!

I have learned my lesson the hard way. One of our little students last year was left unattended with a bottle of glitter for only a few seconds. When she it was discovered, the child had dumped almost half the container on her head.

I was finding glitter for the remainder of the year!

I think glitter glue works way better.

This little hand is from one of the kindergarten classes.

I love anything with hand prints!

The snow man and North Pole sign came from my friend, Ms Kelly. She always has the cutest crafts.

Great stand by ornament is the always faithful pine cone.

There are so many ornaments you can make from Popsicle sticks. I have seen so many cute ideas.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all are enjoying some home crafting.

Finnish Fingers

I have found a cookie recipe that is soooooo good!

A blog friend of mine from What About Pie has some really good recipes.

She posted this a few days ago and I had to try it. I"m such a copy cat! Ha ha! She is all ways giving some good back ground information too. You really should check out her blog. I love this cookie. It's light and not to sweet.

This is a very easy recipe to follow. All you need is butter, flower and sugar. You can really taste that buttery flavor. Bonnie said you could use either vanilla or almond flavor and I used almond. Yum! Oh, I just noticed something. I used chopped pecans on the top and the recipe called for chopped almonds. I didn't even notice that. Well anyway, the pecans are yummy on the top.

Thanks for stopping by.

Crochet Scarves

This is what I have been up to lately. Work, home, cook,clean, laundry, then repeat. I haven't been able to post much lately. My work at school has really stepped up. I come home and crash. Since the weather has gotten cooler I feel like making something useful. Theses scarves are real easy! The only stitches I use are chain and double crochet. The first one I made was for my daughter and she likes it. Yea! I'm so happy she likes something mom made. It's a thick chunky yarn and is very soft.

This scarf I made for a friend at work. She wanted me to make her something. She picked out the yarn and this is what I made. Very easy and soft. My daughter wants it for herself, so I guess I'll have to make her one too.

I really like this color. I didn't at first but now that it's finished I really like it. Both of these scarves are called "infinity". I connected it into a big circle and you wrap it around your neck twice.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week!

Fall Treat Mix

I have found several recipes of snack mixes. Of course Chex mix is the one everyone knows.

This is a little different and so easy! This is mostly sweet but peanuts and cheese crackers add just a touch of saltiness.

Yumm! I didn't measure anything, just a little of this and a little of that. All I did was get out my biggest bowl and started dumping stuff in like:

cheese crackers,

salted peanuts,

M&M's

Reese's Pieces,

pretzel twist,

Coco puff cereal

and Cinnamon Toast crunch cereal.

That's all there is to it! You really can add what ever you might like. How cute. I made about 20 bags for my little school friends. They were so excited to get a treat from Ms. Peggy. Some of the kids said they were going to save it and share with their mom's and dad's. Isn't that sweet! Don't forget to add a little tag.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Linking to:

Stone Gable